


The Things We Have Lost (Change Us For Better Or Worse)

by Weird_Berry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, Depressed Harry, Dissociation, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Post-War, References to Depression, Short One Shot, Sort Of, am I even good enough to call it a character study?, but not suicidal, mostly he's experiencing, these are the questions worth asking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 15:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15367944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weird_Berry/pseuds/Weird_Berry
Summary: After the war, Harry deals with the consequences of the death, destruction, and pain Voldemort has wrought. On his friends, on what little is left of those he calls family, and most importantly, on himself.





	The Things We Have Lost (Change Us For Better Or Worse)

The lack of burden come from finally, _finally_ having secured an end to this godforsaken war is like the weight if the world has slipped off Harry's shoulders. It is elation, a tired shout of victory, then sobering to the realisation that he has just killed someone. That he has ended yet another's life with his own hands.

Harry looks away. Stumbles. He pukes beside the body of a dead hitwizard in red robes, the rank scent of bile mingling with the thick stench of blood. The cutting curse, likely.

Voldemort is dead. Upon this realisation, the students of Hogwarts, the Aurors and what few members of the Order still breathe begin to cheer. The celebration of the death of the Dark Lord lasts for but a moment in time, as the weight of all they have lost quickly sinks in.

The battlefield... _Hogwarts herself_ is strewn with the mangled bodies of dead students. Children. People Harry once knew or met in passing. Like a quiet Ravenclaw Fourth Year who had only just made it onto the Quidditch team. Like Colin Creevey, his camera lying broken beside him. Like this same dead Auror whose corpse Harry has just desecrated, however unwillingly.

The remaining Death Eaters have all but disappeared, scattering to the four winds in the wake of their master's demise. For those still standing, still alive, the Dark wizards' hasty retreat is the signal to begin mourning. When the first wail goes up, Harry is almost too shell-shocked to shed a tear.

He is almost too cold to feel Ron's calloused hand on his shoulder, to hold Hermione close as she weeps inconsolably. 

They have lost much today. Far more than Harry ever thought he'd be willing to give: Albus Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin... People he loved and cared deeply about all fell to the monster that Harry had been tasked to kill.

Harry James Potter is a murderer, today. Has been a murderer of men since First Year and the destruction of Quirinius Quirrell. Harry is a murderer, cold and unfeeling, and the wizarding world celebrates. 

He is still cold when they line the bodies up, when Ginny beats at his chest in sorrow for her lost brother. Harry is empty when Ron sniffles beside him, when George cannot contain his grief and screams Fred's name over and over and over again. The Great Hall echoes with the sound of mourning souls, and Harry's heart blows hollow, like a draughty room.

At the funerals of his loved ones he barely bats an eye, content to let his pain simmer just beneath the surface. It festers there. Like an open, gangrenous wound. Like an oozing sore left to bleed unchecked. Pus fills his lungs, engulfing Harry in that rotting stench even as he stares stony-eyed when the final coffin is laid to rest.

Harry is fine. He has killed the Dark Lord. He is a hero. He is _fine _. _Really_ , Hermione.__

____

____

Harry is still fine when he returns to Grimmauld, leaving the Weasleys to their mourning. He is fine when he sets Walburga's portrait ablaze, the nasty old witch's screams kindling for Harry's dark, pained soul just as the portrait itself kindles the hearth's cheery fire, and Harry is _fine_.

He is shivering and in pain, and each night his heart breaks just a little more, fracturing into yet another of its countless bleeding pieces as he watches the light go out in Voldemort's eyes, or in Cedric's, or as Sirius is cursed and slips beyond the Veil too quickly for Harry to catch him. But Harry is _fine_.

He surveys the lonely number twelve, dust layered like snow over the long-compromised Order headquarters and once esteemed home to the infamous Ancient and Most Noble House of Black to which Harry, now of age, is Lord. Though what that lordship _means_ , exactly, is all but pants given the state of the Black line. Its only surviving members, not currently outright criminals, consist of Narcissa, Draco, possibly, and himself, and Harry isn't even a Black by blood.

Still, a House Lord has a duty to his House. Harry knows he must either strike Narcissa and Malfoy from the Black lineage tree or have magic punish him for leaving them defenceless, but for now, he is content to watch the golden flames in the hearth fire, and with Walburga's shrieking screams.


End file.
